Demon's Souls Remake Guide – 12 Tips and Tricks You Need To Know
As the remake of one of the most beloved games of the PS3 era and perhaps the only major next-gen-exclusive launch title, Bluepoint's Demon's Souls is a game that millions have been looking forward to for some time now. The game's now out in parts of the world, and will be out globally soon enough, giving everyone the chance to jump back into its nightmarish world once more. For veterans of the series, there isn't much that we can tell you about it that you wouldn't already know, but most likely, many newcomers and series beginners will be jumping into the game for the first time. If you're such a player, the beginners tips and tricks we've compiled in this feature will be very handy in the early hours of the game.
VANGUARD
The Vanguard is the first boss in the game, and entirely optional, too- you can die early on in the tutorial and never get to the boss fight, if you wish. But if you do manage to make it to this demon and actually defeat it, you'll have some nifty rewards in store. Defeating the Vanguard will net you wish plenty of early souls, a unique Grey Demon's Soul, and open up a checkpoint stone to a path that has some useful consumables and loot lying around. Not crucial by any means, but a nice bonus nonetheless.
PHALANX
Other than the Vanguard, the Phalanx is the first boss you will encounter in Demon's Souls, and arguably the first real boss fight of the game, and while it's an appropriately challenging encounter, there's one trick you should keep in mind while taking it on to make life a little easier for you. This fight sees you going up against not only Phalanx, but also plenty of smaller enemies as at the same time as well, and it's recommended that you make it a priority to take out all of those small guys first. Phalanx can't protect itself anymore once you do that, which makes attacking it and bringing down its health to zero that much easier.
ROYALTY
Of course, one of the most difficult decisions you'll be making in Demon's Souls early on is that of what class you want to pick. There's no wrong answers, to be honest, and a lot of great choices, but some classes are better than the others for beginners. The Royalty class is probably one of the best choices for newcomers. Its focus on ranged attacks and skill with the dark arts makes it a great starting class, and hanging back, locking on to enemies, and firing Soul Arrows from a distance is a great way to ensure that you don't get overwhelmed by enemies early on.
TEMPLE KNIGHT
The Temple Knight is another great starting class. In many ways, this is your stock warrior class, and for those who're looking for a good, versatile, melee build, this is the way to go. The Temple Knight has decent armour, high stamina, and good reach with its sword, and combined with a high strength stat and the ability to heal itself, makes for a solid first choice for beginners and newcomers.
PRIEST
If your playstyle is the kind that tends to focus on healing and self-healing, the Priest class might be the way to go. Priests have deficiencies in other areas, and aren't necessarily the most well-rounded characters in the beginning, but for newcomers who're looking to have plenty of healing spells and abilities in their arsenal right off the bat, the Priest class is the way to go.
WORLD TENDENCY
Demon's Souls' World Tendency system is a crucial element of the game that defines much of the experience- it's basically a difficulty setting, even though the game itself doesn't have actual difficulty options. Pure White World Tendency is the easiest, and Pure Black is the hardest. Helping other characters, defeating bosses, and beating invaders pushes it toward the former, while dying a lot, invading other players does the opposite. It goes without saying that if you're a newcomer and on your first playthrough, a Pure White run is probably the best choice- though you will get fewer souls and loot drops on Pure White runs.
PLAY OFFLINE
Again, this is specifically for newcomers, and specifically if you want to keep your World Tendency as close to Pure White as possible- but playing the game offline is recommended. If you play online, you always run the risk of getting invaded and dying, which will mess up your World Tendency. Playing offline does mean you lose out on some features, such as summoning help or helping other players, but it's better to be safe than sorry.
SOUL FORM
This is another crucial tip that you should keep in mind while playing Demon's Souls, especially if you want to keep your World Tendency as close to Pure White as possible. When you're playing in Soul Form, you have lower health than your human form, but dying when in Soul Form has no negative impact on World Tendency. As such, beginners who want to keep the Tendency close to Pure White and keep the game a little easier should always play in Soul Form.
CLING RING
Soul Form does have some disadvantages, of course. For instance, as mentioned earlier, you always play with the handicap of a reduced total health bar when in Soul Form- which is why the Cling Ring is a crucial item that you should be on the lookout for. Found very early in the game in the Boletarian Palace, the Cling Ring increases your ghostly form's health- so keep an eye out for this one, and make sure you don't miss it.
BOSS SOULS
Killing bosses will net you with special boss souls (or Demon's Souls), and while you might be tempted to spend them haphazardly to power up your character, it's important to be careful about you do so. These are best used for things such as weapon upgrades and Miracles, so plan ahead on what you want to buy with your boss souls, and spend them wisely.
ENCUMBRANCE
Demon's Souls differs from other Souls games in one very crucial way- encumbrance. So even if you've played a Dark Souls game and are coming in to this one with that prior experience, that's something important to keep in mind. Set out from the Nexus only with the things you're going to need, otherwise you'll end up having to drop items and loot to make room for new stuff. Healing grasses only take a heavier toll on your encumbrance now, so think carefully about how many of them you want to bring along with you.
NPCs
All gamers have that twisted desire to take swipes at NPCs just for the lulz, but we can't stress this enough- don't do that in Demon's Souls. Attacking NPCs, even if you do it accidentally, will turn them hostile, which means you'll end up having to kill them. And once you kill NPCs, you lose access to any and all amenities they may have provided, such as stores they may have had open for you to peruse later in the game. So when around NPCs, it's best to keep your trigger finger relaxed.
The 2018 Spider-Man game arrived relatively late in the PlayStation 4's life cycle. The PlayStation 4 Pro was already a mature product and the rumour mill was abuzz about the ninth-generation consoles that were set to launch in a couple of years. First party developer Insomniac Games leveraged their experience working with Sony hardware — these are the people who delivered the Resistance and Ratchet and Clank series – so at this point they are a technical force to reckon with. From the effortless gameplay and rock-solid performance to the remarkably detailed environments and characters, Spider-Man 2018 was a compelling reason to get a PlayStation console.
This year, we're getting not one, but two Spider-Man games on the PlayStation 5: Spider-Man Remastered and Spider-Man: Miles Morales. As one of the more technically accomplished games in the eighth-gen, it's somewhat surprising that Spider-Man's getting the remaster treatment and that too so early. Nevertheless, here we have it. Running on the same engine and largely utilizing the same assets, it's fascinating to compare these titles to each other and to Spider-Man on the PlayStation 4 Pro and the PS5.
What exactly do the remaster and Miles Morales bring to the table? We're looking at hardware ray tracing, a higher resolution output, and improved models and shaders. This isn't a case of upping the resolution and calling it a day: there are profound improvements to be seen in both games. How exactly do they stack up to the older PS4 Pro code? Let's take a look!
Engine overview
Unlike the Demon's Souls remake on PlayStation 5, the PlayStation 5 version of Spider-Man Remastered isn't a top-to-bottom technical remake. Rather, Insomniac builds on a solid foundation of eighth-gen code to add meaningful improvements where they matter. Spider-Man runs on the same in-house engine as 2016's Ratchet and Clank. On the other front, Miles Morales moves the technical dial far beyond what we're seeing in Spider-Man: Remastered but in subtle ways. The winter setting and some tweaked material rendering mean that the visuals feel different.
Insomniac's impressive material and lighting work there resulted in a CGI-like experience at times. Both Spider-Man games are very different, both in terms of aesthetics and scope: relatively linear areas and dense detail are swapped out for a wide-open city built around smooth web-swinging traversal. Compared to Ratchet and Clank, there are compromises in terms of LODs and minor object detail. However, that best-of-breed physically-based material renderer is very much intact. And high-quality character and object models make their appearance in cutscenes. Lighting is excellent, too: Insomniac made use of static global illumination, the pre-calculated indirect lighting is often stunningly lifelike. In Miles Morales, the GI really ramps the visual experience up during night-time scenes on snowy streets, with indirect lighting bouncing off sources like neon signs and onto the snow.
And the loading times on both the PS5 versions are amazing. Let's take a look at that.
Image quality and performance
While the PlayStation 4 Pro was advertised as a 4K console, it didn't quite have the graphics horsepower to offer a native 4K experience. Spider-Man on the PlayStation 4 Pro utilizes dynamic resolution scaling. Thanks to the excellent temporal antialiasing and the game's filmic post-processing, dips in resolution aren't very noticeable. However, stacked up against the native 4K output on PlayStation 5, the PlayStation 4 Pro image is noticeably softer, especially as the action heats up and resolution drops to stabilize performance.
Insomniac's made use of the PlayStation 5's considerable GPU capabilities to deliver a full 4K output in both Miles Morales and the remaster, with "quality" and "performance" modes. Dynamic resolution scaling doesn't appear to be in use here, meaning gamers get a crisp, native 4K image at all times.
Performance on the PlayStation 4 Pro was relatively good, all things considered. Both Spider-Man games delivered a very consistent 30 FPS experience, with great frame pacing and only a handful of dips below. The PlayStation 5's "quality mode" does what it's supposed to do. You're still getting a rock-solid 30 FPS. It's in performance mode, with ray-tracing turned off, that framerates shoot right up. In performance mode, these games hit– and mostly maintain — a 4K/60 FPS lock. The native 4K presentation and the remarkably smooth gameplay experience could make this the mode of choice, even if that means losing out on those ray-traced reflections. Ultimately, the PlayStation 5's raw horsepower gives players more flexibility in terms of performance, while offering superior image quality across the board.
Ray-tracing
This is the big headline differentiator between Spider-Man and Miles Morales on PlayStation 4 Pro and the PlayStation 5 remaster. Insomniac's leveraged RDNA2's hardware raytracing support to add in ray-traced reflections and ray-traced indirect shadowing. Insomniac's console ray-tracing implementation is fascinating, considering how things look relative to hardware ray-tracing in the PC space, and the kind of compromises made to get there.
For starters, there is a major performance hit. Ray-tracing is only supported in the quality mode in both games, which drops the framerate to 30 FPS, a straight match for the PlayStation 4 Pro code. High quality motion blur and a remarkably smooth animation system make 4K/30 FPS gameplay viable, but this is a noticeably choppier experience compared to the 60 FPS performance mode.
Early trailers of the Spider-Man remaster were also criticized for the quality of the ray-traced effects. Ray-traced reflections appear to render in at a sub-native resolution. Also, aggressive culling means that not all objects receive ray-traced reflections. Regardless, ray-traced reflections are a massive step up from the screen-space implementation on PlayStation 4 Pro. The reflections resolve a much higher level of detail than their screen-space counterparts and the effect is often day-and-night when you're perched next to a glass window.
Ray-traced indirect shadowing is a bit harder to notice. This is largely because Spider-Man on PlayStation 4 Pro already featured competent ambient occlusion, and the static global illumination did a great job of accurately modelling lower-light areas. However, the ray-traced shadowing adds a level of depth to darker areas, especially at ground-level: the effect is more noticeable in cutscenes, especially with character and object closeups.
Character models and shading
Sony highlighted improved character models and shading as key improvements to the Spider-Man remaster. This came as a bit of a surprise since the original PlayStation 4 code already featured excellent, high polygon characters with great skin shading. Insomniac has apparently decided to take things up a notch or two, though. While it can be tough to discern the difference during gameplay, the higher fidelity models really shine through during cutscenes and closeups. We're looking at higher polygon counts for key character models, and an overhauled skin shader.
This is one of the areas where Miles Morales shows tangible improvement over the remaster: while Spider-Man Remastered also features "improved character models," the sheer poly-count and high-frequency detail on Miles' character model trumps the original.
Miles Morales and the remaster are supposed to feature higher quality hair rendering, too. However, we weren't able to spot the difference here, and the post-process AA didn't help. These are relatively iterative improvements. However, the differences are apparent when you stack the PlayStation 4 Pro code up next to the PlayStation 5 games: objects and people just look that bit better.
Conclusion: a solid remaster and a great demonstration of console ray-tracing
Neither Miles Morales nor Spider-Man Remastered go to extraordinary technical lengths on the PlayStation 5, and maybe that's because they really don't have to or perhaps both being cross generation games hold back from these games from truly shining. Spider-Man on PlayStation 4 Pro looked and played incredibly well for a late eighth-generation title. The PlayStation 5 outings for both games mostly build in subtle ways, from smoother-looking character models to enhanced performance. The real difference, though, comes from turning hardware ray-tracing on. While drop to 30 FPS might be tough to deal with for some, ray-traced reflections and shadowing are a night and day difference. They're also a great early demonstrator of console ray-tracing, proving that AMD's RDNA2 hardware is at least as capable as NVIDIA's last-gen Turing cards.
Exit the Dungeon is Out on Xbox One and PS4, Hello to Arms Update Also Live
Devolver Digital's Exit the Gungeon is now available for Xbox One and PS4 but there's cause for all fans to celebrate. The new "Hello to Arms" update is also live, bringing the new Arsenal Mode, additional shops in the hub and a terrifying new boss to hunt. Check out the release trailer below.
Arsenal Mode addresses complaints of not having any control over one's weapon selection. Along with toggling the weapons that drop from loot and are available to purchase in shops, players can hold and switch between all of their carried weapons at any time. While they may have limited ammo, there will be ammo pickups available throughout.
As for the shops, you'll come across Bello's Shop twice on a single floor and also offers different doors for encounters or other NPCs. Whether the new mini-games are included in the latter or not remains to be seen but either way, you'll gain more than enough guns to manage. Oh, and of course, you can pet the dog. Exit the Gungeon is also available for Switch, PC and Apple Arcade – stay tuned for more details on subsequent updates.
Watch Dogs: Legion is Third Best-Selling Title in US for October 2020
The NPD Group's sales data for October 2020 is out and consumer spending for video games – which includes hardware, software and accessories – hit $3.8 billion. Year-to-date spending also hit $37.5 billion, which is 20 percent higher than the previous year, and that's expected to increase with the release of Xbox Series X/S and PS5. In the meantime, the previous gen had some strong sellers with FIFA 21 being the best-selling title for the month.
Along with topping both Xbox and PlayStation charts, this is the first time that a FIFA title actually topped the overall sales charts in the US. Madden NFL 21 was in second, which should come as no surprise given the series' success in the market. Then there's Watch Dogs: Legion whose sales were tracked for only three days in the month and still managed to rank as the third best-selling title.
NHL 21 also had a pretty good month, ranking fourth the overall software sales charts. Its launch month dollar sales were also the highest for any title in the franchise NHL 16 released in September 2015. Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit also did pretty good, despite not being a traditional Mario Kart title. It topped sales charts for Nintendo platforms and ranked fifth in sales overall.
Check out The NPD Group's top ten best-selling titles in the US, ranked on dollar sales, below:
- FIFA 21
- Madden NFL 21
- Watch Dogs: Legion
- NHL 21
- Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit
- Super Mario 3D All-Stars*
- Animal Crossing: New Horizons*
- Star Wars: Squadrons
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
- Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time
*Digital sales not included
Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout Sells Over 10 Million Copies on Steam
Mediatonic's Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout continues to be a huge success, selling over 10 million units on Steam. Interestingly, the figure came from a financial report from Unity covering sales for the quarter ending September 30th. Given that the multiplayer title reportedly sold seven million units by August, that means an additional three million units have been sold since.
Fall Guys has been a pretty massive success since its release, amassing over 8 million players on PS4 as of August (thanks to being available on PlayStation at launch). Back in September, SuperData reported it as earning $185 million in revenue this year, making it a bigger PC launch than Blizzard's Overwatch from 2016. Mediatonic has been quick to update the game, releasing Season 2 and a mid-season update to keep players engaged.
Even more is on the way though with Season 3, a mobile launch in China and so on. It's even possible that the game comes to other platforms sometime in the future. In the meantime, stay tuned for more details.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales Guide – 15 Beginners Tips and Tricks to Keep in Mind
The next chapter in Insomniac's Spidey universe is here, and as the game's name suggests, it puts the focus squarely on Miles Morales. Out now for PS5 and PS4, Spider-Man: Miles Morales is going to take millions of players on yet another thrilling webswinging journey across wintery Manhattan, and in this feature, we'll talk about some basic pointers that you should keep in mind while playing the game. Some of these will be familiar to anyone who's played the 2018 game, though a few will pertain specifically to Miles' many new abilities. So without further ado, let's get started.
BASIC NAVIGATION SKILLS
Traversal is the primary pillar of gameplay in Miles Morales, just as it was in its predecessor, and while you'll begin the game with a solid arsenal of moves as it is, you should try an unlock some other traversal-focused skills as well, to make swinging about Manhattan a bit more fun. Abilities such as Point Launch Boost – which unlocks Point Launch – and Quick Zip – which lets you web zip mid-air twice in quick succession – are going to become essential parts of your swinging moveset, so try and unlock them as quickly as possible.
VENOM ATTACKS
Miles' Spidey differs from Peter's wallcrawler in a few few ways, and the biggest by far is Miles' bio-electric abilities. His Venom attacks add a whole new dimension to combat, allowing you to unleash a whole new arsenal of moves and deal deadly damage to enemies. And while that might make it sound like his Venom abilities should be saved for bosses or tougher enemies, it's actually best to keep using Venom attacks basically any time you have them. As soon as you've charged up your Venom meter even a little bit, it's time to let loose with your more powerful electrically-charged attacks.
SYNAPTIC BREAKDOWN
One of the most useful advantages of attacking enemies with Miles' Venom powers is the fact that these attacks stun enemies, which can be incredibly useful in the busier combat encounters. But stunning enemies isn't something the game hands to you right off the bat- you have to unlock that perk. So when you're playing around with Miles' skill tree, make sure to unlock the Synaptic Breakdown skill as quickly as possible. It is unlockable starting at level 4, and can be gained with just one skill point.
ENERGY SYPHON
Another crucial skill that you should prioritize unlocking in the early hours of the game is Energy Syphon. Miles' Venom bar will fill up on its own as you attack enemies and dodge attacks during combat, but if you have Energy Syphon unlocked, the rate at which that bar fills up will go up significantly. Unlockable at level 3 with just one skill point, this is one of the earliest skills in the game's skill tree, and should ideally be among the very first skills you unlock.
VENOM SMASH
This one isn't as consistently useful as Synaptic Breakdown or Energy Syphon, but the Venom Smash attack – which is essentially an electrically-charged ground pound – is a devastating attack that does lots of area of effect damage, so get this move as quickly as possible. In fact, unlockable at level 1 with just one skill point, this is the earliest skill you're going to unlock in the game anyway.
VENOM SMASH AND GRAVITY WELL
Venom Smash is incredibly useful no matter when or how you use it, but there are ways to maximize its usefulness. The best way is to combine it with the Gravity Well gadget. The Gravity Well, as its name suggests, sucks enemies in the vicinity into its gravity field, and letting loose with a powerful electric ground pound once that happens can quickly turn the tide of a combat encounter.
GRAVITY WELL UPGRADE
Upgrading the Gravity Well is something you should prioritize. The Gravity Well is an incredibly useful gadget even in its most basic form, but it becomes increasingly more useful as it powers up. Its second upgrade, for instance, instantly disarms any and all enemies it pulls into its black hole, and if used properly, can turn out to be extremely handy during the harder combat encounters.
PETER'S CHALLENGES
Miles' skill tree isn't the only place where you'll be unlocking skills in Miles Morales. Peter may have left New York on a temporary basis, but he still wants to ensure that Miles' training as the next Spider-Man continues, and so he's left multiple challenges for him to take on. All of these are associated with unlockable skills of their own, which definitely shouldn't be overlooked. Many of the skills you get through these challenges have a lot of utility (such as the traversal skills we mentioned earlier), so make sure you do Peter's challenges.
CAMOUFLAGE
Other than Miles' bio-electric abilities, another incredibly useful ability he has that sets him apart from Peter's repertoire of moves is camouflage, which basically renders him temporarily invisible. It has a lot of uses, from giving you an edge in stealth sections to even letting you re-enter stealth if you want, but you can use it in combat as well. More specifically, if you find yourself low on health and overwhelmed by large numbers of enemies, using the camouflage and stepping away for a bit to give yourself a few seconds to breathe and heal up is a great use of this ability.
SNIPERS
Camouflage's usefulness in stealth cannot be overstated, obviously, and something that it is particularly useful for is taking out ranged enemies during stealth sections. For instance, when you invariably come across groups of enemies with snipers placed at multiple points, Miles' invisibility will come in very handy. You can use it to close the distance to snipers and immediately take them out, saving you the hassle of having to avoid their line of sight.
RANGED ENEMIES
As you progress further into Miles Morales, combat encounters will become progressively more complicated, throwing multiple enemies of varying kinds at you at the same time. In such situations, it's best to take out the ranged enemies before all others. They can be a big nuisance while you're trying to juggle multiple melee types and brutes, so it's best to take them out of the equation first and foremost.
AERIAL COMBAT
This should be a pretty basic tip for anyone who's played the first Spider-Man, but for newcomers, it still bears mentioning- aerial combat is your best friend in Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Keep throwing enemies up into the air, keep juggling them, and keep pulling grounded enemies up. It incapacitates foes that much quicker, and should be your primary way of taking on large groups during combat encounters.
SUIT POWERS
A pretty important change that Miles Morales makes to progression is that suit powers are now no longer tied to suits. You can use any suit power and any mod you want with whatever suit you want to equip, and it's important that you keep experimenting with combinations. Equip suits primarily based on whatever looks best on Miles, but make sure to try out different combos of mods and suit powers to match your play style.
TRICKS
Again, this is a very basic trip, especially for those who've played the first game, but given how easily skippable it is, it's worth mentioning anyway. Like Peter, Miles can pull off some pretty sick looking tricks and stunts during freefall while webswinging, and you should be doing these any chance you get. Not only do they net small amounts of what is essentially free XP, they also recharge your Venom meter, which, as we've discussed, is a crucial tool.
SIDE MISSIONS
Like its predecessor, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales has plenty of side missions to dive into as well, and while many might be tempted to beeline it through the main story, it's recommended that you don't ignore the optional missions. Miles' new home in Harlem has received something of a facelift in this game, and the collective flavour of this location is a crucial part of the story and Miles as a character, and these side missions add a lot to that part of the narrative. So make sure to tackle these side missions any time they become available.
Xbox Game Pass has clearly become central to Microsoft's strategy. Contrary to what many believe, Microsoft believes the Game Pass model is a sustainable one, and to keep feeding content into the service, they've been driven to keep looking for more potential studio acquisitions. In fact, the subscription service has even changed the way they develop games- or even which games they develop.
Speaking in a recent interview with The Guardian, head of Xbox Phil Spencer gave examples of a few recent Xbox Game Studios releases that would not have been greenlit to begin with if Microsoft hadn't been confident in the success of Game Pass, and that the subscription's userbase would be willing to give these games a try. The likes of Microsoft Flight Simulator (which enjoyed the biggest launch so far in Game Pass PC history), Dontnod's episodic adventure Tell Me Why, and Rare and Dlala Studio's Battletoads revival, would not have existed if not for Game Pass.
"I honestly don't think we'd greenlight Tell Me Why if not for Game Pass," Spencer said. "It's an episodic, story-driven game – you don't see a lot of them getting made. We knew with the 15 million subscribers we have now, that it would get played, and that people would engage in it more than they would if there was a $30 price point in front of it. Even Flight Simulator is a game we would not have green-lit if we did not see Game Pass growing. We had a million players of Battletoads! These are all examples of games that in an exclusively retail model would be more challenged."
This isn't the first we've heard Microsoft or its studios talking about how Game Pass has changed their approach to development, and how it's made them more willing to take risks and work on more experimental games. For instance, The Coalition has explicitly said that the subscription service was a big factor in why they went ahead with the development of Gears Tactics.
Nioh 2 – The First Samurai Adds New Difficulty Level, Out in December
It's been a busy day for Koei Tecmo with the announcement of Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition coming to PC and The Nioh Collection announced for PS5. Current players on PS4 should also take note though – the third and final DLC, The First Samurai, is out on December 17th. It will offer new missions and a new difficulty which Team Ninja promises will "give even the most seasoned veterans a run for their money."
While details on new weapons, Guardian Spirits and so on have yet to be revealed, a few story details were provided. The protagonist goes back to the past yet again, visiting "the land of the fabled youth that defeated an oni." We'll learn more about Otakemaru, who the first samurai really was and Sohayamaru's secret.
More importantly, the protagonist's story will finally come to an end. It's been a bittersweet journey but it should be interesting to see how things pan out. Nioh 2 currently has two other DLC available – The Tengu's Disciple and Darkness in the Capital – and is available for PS4. Stay tuned for more details on The First Samurai in the coming months.
Recently, Psyonix announced that Rocket League will be getting next-gen updates very soon– but not across all platforms. While the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are both getting 120 FPS modes, on the PS5, the game will run in a checkerboard 4K resolution at 60 FPS, same as the game's PS4 Pro version.
There's understandably been some criticism for this decision, but the developer has explained in a statement to Push Square just why there is such a disparity between the game's Xbox and PlayStation next-gen updates.
Essentially, it's a question of how much work had to be put in. While the Xbox Series X/S required only a simple patch for 120 FPS to work, on the PS5, the game would need to receive a full native port due to how backward compatibility functions on the system. With the developer preoccupied with Rocket League's free-to-play launch, they had to prioritize things accordingly.
"Our team's main focus this year was our recent free to play transition, and updating major features like our Tournaments system," Psyonix says in its statement. "Due to this we had to make tough decisions on what else we could achieve. Enabling 120hz on Xbox Series X|S is a minor patch, but enabling it on PS5 requires a full native port due to how backwards compatibility is implemented on the console, and unfortunately wasn't possible due to our focus elsewhere."
This isn't the first time a game has suffered setbacks on the PS5 due to how the console handles its backward compatibility. Maneater supports cross-gen save transfers on Xbox, but not on PlayStation, for pretty much this exact same reason. Meanwhile, Star Wars: Squadrons has 120 FPS modes on Xbox Series X/S, but not on PS5– presumably for the same reason.
Currently, Rocket League is available on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC, and is playable on Xbox Series X/S and PS5 via backward compatibility. Its next-gen update will be arriving later in the year.
Xbox Series X/S – Quick Resume Currently Disabled on Some Games, Microsoft Working on Fixes
The Xbox Series X/S' Quick Resume feature has been heavily advertised in the lead up to the two consoles' launch, and while their SSDs and other impressive hardware specs (especially in the Series X's case) have been the headline grabbing improvements, Quick Resume's ease of use and convenience cannot be overstated.
And while the feature is compatible with thousands of games right now, some titles are facing issues with the same. Recently, director of product management at Xbox, Jason Ronald, took to Twitter to that some games optimized for the Xbox Series X/S at launch are facing issues with Quick Resume, and as such, Microsoft have disabled the feature with those particular games.
Ronald says that fixes are currently in the works, and once they've been tested and implemented, the feature will be brought online on those titles once again. No timeframe is given as to when we can expect those fixes to go online, but hopefully it shouldn't be too far off in the future.
Quick Resume can allow users to suspend 4-6 games simultaneously and quickly switch back and forth between them, while that number can go even higher depending on whether or not you're playing backward compatibility titles. Meanwhile, impressively enough, Quick Resume retains your suspended games even if you unplug your console.
The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S are out now across the world.
We will update as Quick Resume comes online for these titles once the fix has been tested and implemented. Thank you for your support and patience Xbox Community! We can't wait for you to experience the next generation of gaming on Xbox Series X|S with us!
— Jason Ronald (@jronald) November 9, 2020